Back in 2018 when I finally had time to catch up on reading after a 2 year hiatus due to my MBA the first book that I lay my hands on was the magnum opus by Vikram Seth. A recommendation by a dear friend Shilpa was the bulkiest book that I had read till date. For a month with an iron resolve I read through the 1500 odd pages; at the end I felt it was totally worth it. Being in Bombay I had this habit of procuring books from second hand book sellers and returning it back to them, they would refund a fraction of your money that you paid. This would prevent you from piling up your stuff which would be a huge hassle when you move houses in the maximum city every once in two years or so. A couple of weeks later my brother who was visiting chanced upon my description of the book which got him intrigued. It was to be his companion in the 30 hour train journey back to Trivandrum. Eventually, the book we paid for twice ended up in our personal library at home.
Fast forward 2020; BBC announced a mini series based on the book directed by the well acclaimed Mira Nair to be aired on Netflix. It was indeed a great feeling for us to watch together one of the books that we truly relished and invested a lot of our time on. The plot of the book revolves around the protagonist Lata, a pensive college student and her mother Rupa Mehra who wants to get her married to ‘a suitable boy’. Maan Kapoor, another protagonist, takes us through the travails of being a romantic young man. This is juxtaposed with the Land reforms bill presented by Ram Kapoor the revenue minister of a fictitious state set in Brahmpur. You can find unrequited love,an extra marital relationship, politics in the academia, a critique to the ever prevalent caste system, religious conflict, riots name it and you got it.The novel with numerous characters and multitudes of subplots is all interwoven together into a masterpiece by the ace storyteller,Vikram Seth.Every character in the book has a story associated with him or her. There are a number of threads involving different families Mehras(Lata’s family),Kapoors(Maan’s family),Chaterjees(Lata’s sister in law’s family), Baitar family,Rasheed’s family to name a few.
As the show started we were in awe by the amount of detailing that went in the art department. Mind you this movie was based on the 1950’s and the sets were majestic. Our first thoughts at seeing the protagonist Lata played by Tanya Maniktala was that she was too beautiful. For some odd reason in our minds we had conjured up an image of a plain jane. But then we realised that a good visual appeal is required to make it believable for the audience. She was after all a woman who was being wooed by 3 different suitors. Nonetheless, in the course of the show she grew into the skin of the character and convinced us that the titular role indeed belonged to her. Mahira Kakkar who played Lata’s mother was a perfect choice given the fact that she fit into the role and looked the part right from scene one. Arun Mehra played by Vivek Gomber the snobbish big brother of Lata was spot on and his wife Meenakshi Chaterjee played by Shahana Goswami with a lot of oomph definitely fit the bill perfectly.
To be frank Ishaan Khatter as Maan Kapoor came as a rude shock to us because we were expecting a guy a little more older than him with some sort of machismo and vulnerability in equal measure. The vulnerability part was spot on but the machismo was very much missing . Ram Kapoor,who played Maan’s father was a natural actor who felt initially out of place as we were expecting someone much older.Saeeda Bai a courtesan played by Tabu was a masterstroke because no one else could have done justice to the iconic role. The timeless beauty yet again delivered another enchanting role to her credit.Even the first posters of the series featuring Tabu being wooed by Ishaan Khatter was quite a sight.Haresh played by Namit Das was beautifully portrayed and my initial reservations on the choice of the actor vanished after some screen time. Another character I really looked forward to on the screen was Waaris played by Ranvir Shoorey who is the estate manager of the Baitar estate.The series was an abridged version of the book so there were a lot of subplots missing. If you were to make a series of the entire book it could easily run for 3 seasons comfortably.
For me there were a few scenes from the book that actually caught my attention in the series as well. The one where Arun brags to Haresh on the landmarks of London as if it is his backyard, but the irony of the fact is that he had never visited the place. He was trying to belittle Haresh who had studied in England. The cat was out of the bag when Haresh quite innocently asked him as to when was the last time he visited London. Another breathtaking scene that did justice to the book was Kabir taking Lata on a boat ride at dawn through the Ganges. The sequence in an ambassador car after Lata’s family met Hareesh for dinner at a big shot calcutta club where Savita(Lata’s sister) gives a dressing down to her elder brother Arun came out quite well. The friendship between Maan and Firoz after some initial hiccups was presented true to its nature towards the end.
I was equally disappointed by a scene which had a considerable build up in the book of the 3 suitors of Lata meeting by a strange coincidence in course of a cricket match in Calcutta. Similarly the mishap that happens in the midst of the Kumbh Mela was narrated in graphical detail in the book was only an episode ending sequence in the series came up quite short. The village life of Mann again was a rushed affair in the series which was quite extensively covered in the book. The grandeur of the Baitar estate was also lost in translation. The phase where Amit(Meenakshi’s brother) was trying to woo Lata was also shown barely as a passing reference but was quite intense in the book.
If you set aside the book and watch the series it is a decent watch. The moment you start co relating to the book everything goes downhill. If you have read the book you can’t help to think about it because even though the characters are numerous in number Seth has ensured that they leave an indelible mark in the minds of the reader. Even Though I had read the book a good 2 years back after watching the series I can clearly state a few of the sub plots from the top of my head which is testimony to the genius of the writer. These include the story of Bhaskar(nephew of Mann), struggles of Pran(Mann’s brother) at the University, the entire story of the Chaterjee household, the story of Agarwal(home minister and arch nemesis of Mahesh Kapoor),story of the tabla artist in Saeeda bai’s entourage are some among the many missing subplots, the colourful story of Kishan Seth(Lata’s grandfather).I can go on and on the list is endless.
The book starts with the wedding of Savita Mehra where Lata’s mother tells her “You will marry the boy I choose”. The book ends with Lata’s wedding where her mother tells the same thing to her brother Varun, of course the other way round. He was portrayed as the Bhojpuri loving slacker of a guy in the entire novel until his fortunes turn towards the end of the book when he cracks the Indian Civil service exam and is all set to become an IAS officer. Naturally this sets off a speculation that this book will have a sequel. My natural instinct was to google ‘A suitable girl’ the moment I finished reading the book. It is true that there will be a sequel to the book which was scheduled to be published around 2016 but that never happened. Seth says that the sequel would not be the one where a bride is found for Varun but rather the story will take a jump start from 1950 to the present day and deal with the same characters. I hope my wife is reading this,it so happened that I was waiting for Arundhati Roy’s second book with great anticipation after being much in awe of ‘God of small things’. She gifted me the book by pre ordering the book on Amazon even before its publication. That way I was among the first few hundreds in the country to read the book as soon as it was released. This was a far cry from its predecessor which I had read almost 2 decades after it was published. I have indeed found the ‘suitable girl’; period...
P.S: In case you like what you read please check out another book review of mine.
Men and Dreams in the Dhauladhar
